Besides Big Government, the biggest usurper of privacy is Google (or are they now one and the same?).

I carry an Android smartphone (Google operating system). I leave the location feature off, but miss nice features by not being tracked. I use google search and google mail, among other things. It is more than a little creepy. At some point they know everything about you - and they are willing to share!

Interesting article: Inside DuckDuckGo, Google's Tiniest, Fiercest Competitorhttp://www.fastcolabs.com/3026698/inside-duckduckgo-googles-tiniest-fiercest-competitorDuckDuckGo's Secret Weapon: Hardcore PrivacyWhen you do a search from DuckDuckGo's website or one of its mobile apps, it doesn't know who you are. There are no user accounts. Your IP address isn't logged by default. The site doesn't use search cookies to keep track of what you do over time or where else you go online. It doesn't save your search history. When you click on a link in DuckDuckGo's results, those websites won't see which search terms you used. Simply put, they're hardcore about privacy

We are fast approaching a privacy crisis in the United States. Google, Facebook and other big Internet companies collect information about us, which they deploy in the service of advertisers. Big data brokers, like Acxiom, have developed sophisticated tools that allow them to know almost as much about us as we know about ourselves; they then sell that data to all kinds of companies that want to learn everything from our habits to our health, from our sexual orientation to our finances. The digital age has made it easy to collect medical data, which is supposed to be protected under federal law. Huge data breaches at big retailers like Target have made it seem unsafe to use credit cards. And I haven’t even mentioned the Edward Snowden revelations about the massive data collection by the National Security Agency.

“The United States,” says Barry Steinhardt, the founder of Friends of Privacy USA, “is basically the Wild West of privacy.”

As The Times noted in an editorial on Monday, it was two years ago that the Obama administration issued a report calling for a consumer privacy bill of rights. Although the report went nowhere, it was full of sound, broad principles: “a sensible framework that would help establish fairness and accountability for the collection and use of personal information,” as a group of privacy advocates put it in a letter they sent to the president on Monday.

The advocates called on President Obama to work with Congress to finally pass privacy legislation. In that spirit, I thought it would be a useful exercise to call some privacy experts and ask them what should be in such a bill. Here’s what they had to say.

REGULATE DATA BROKERS Almost everyone I spoke to saw data brokers as a far bigger threat to privacy than, say, Facebook. These are companies that collect a hundred different data points, both off-line and online, and create scores and profiles that they sell to anyone who wants to buy them. At a minimum, people should know what information of theirs is being compiled. Better yet, people should have a right to control what information of theirs gets sold and what remains private.

OPT-IN INSTEAD OF OPT-OUT The typical terms of agreement that we check when we want to use the services of an Internet company invariably gives the company the right to redeploy our information for their own benefit. Some companies also give consumers the right to opt-out of that information-gathering, but it is usually a process that requires some effort. A far better approach would have customers opting in instead of opting out. This would also likely force companies to explain to their customers why they need the data and what they will use it for, which is another thing that should be included in any privacy bill.

GIVE COMPANIES AN INCENTIVE TO PREVENT DATA BREACHES One reason breaches like the recent Target disaster have taken place is that they bring with them very little consequence. But it would be easy enough to create consequences — a data breach could be treated like an oil spill, with fines attached. The government could also make it easier for people to sue. Lee Tien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation also says that companies should be doing far more encrypting than they do now. Privacy legislation could give them a push in that direction.

NO MORE SECRETS It’s not just data brokers that need to be more transparent. It is every entity that collects data. People should be able to see the information that is collected on them. For instance, there are companies that compile scores about people — risk scores, or health scores, or fraud scores. Those scores should be known to the people who are being scored because it can affect everything from their ability to get insurance to their chances of landing a job.

(And the latest: How many are aware that our Government wants to hire a company and employees to literally Spy on Children's Cyberspace...)

Just as the government established the www.donotcall.gov website to remove professional disturbers of the peace and corporations from...

This doesn't even touch upon all of the nefarious ways in which information like -cell phone metadata, can be (and is) used.

“You should have the right to know what information is being collected about you, who has access to it, how it is being used, and to limit that use,” says Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “And if companies violate those rights, there should be consequences.”

In 1967, Senator William Proxmire, who would later serve as the head of the Senate Banking Committee, pushed through the Truth in Lending Act in the face of fierce opposition from the credit card industry. It was, however, the best thing that ever happened to the industry because it showed consumers, for the first time, that they had some protection from fraud or shady practices.

In some ways, it is the same now with privacy. As much as the companies like Google and Facebook and Acxiom would oppose privacy legislation, they need it — for their sake as well as ours.

If our laws prohibit the NSA et al from doing XYZ but the NSA et al can end run it by giving other countries the technology to do XYZ and then give the NSA et al the results, does that make our law a joke?

If our laws prohibit the NSA et al from doing XYZ but the NSA et al can end run it by giving other countries the technology to do XYZ and then give the NSA et al the results, does that make our law a joke?

The bigger issue is the backdooring of intel info into criminal investigations and the due process issues that raises and the use of intelligence for partisan polical purposes.

I doubt that the UK's GCHQ or other foreign intel agencies are dependent on our technology.

Barack Obama. Udall wants the president to help declassify the 6,300-page inquiry by the committee into CIA torture. Photograph: Charles Dharapak/AP

Spencer Ackerman in Washington

Wednesday 5 March 2014 12.06 EST

A leading US senator has said that President Obama knew of an “unprecedented action” taken by the CIA against the Senate intelligence committee, which has apparently prompted an inspector general’s inquiry at Langley.

The subtle reference in a Tuesday letter from Senator Mark Udall to Obama, seeking to enlist the president’s help in declassifying a 6,300-page inquiry by the committee into torture carried out by CIA interrogators after 9/11, threatens to plunge the White House into a battle between the agency and its Senate overseers.

McClatchy and the New York Times reported Wednesday that the CIA had secretly monitored computers used by committee staffers preparing the inquiry report, which is said to be scathing not only about the brutality and ineffectiveness of the agency’s interrogation techniques but deception by the CIA to Congress and policymakers about it. The CIA sharply disputes the committee’s findings.

Udall, a Colorado Democrat and one of the CIA’s leading pursuers on the committee, appeared to reference that surreptitious spying on Congress, which Udall said undermined democratic principles.

“As you are aware, the CIA has recently taken unprecedented action against the committee in relation to the internal CIA review and I find these actions to be incredibly troubling for the Committee’s oversight powers and for our democracy,” Udall wrote to Obama on Tuesday.

Independent observers were unaware of a precedent for the CIA spying on the congressional committees established in the 1970s to check abuses by the intelligence agencies.

“In the worst case, it would be a subversion of independent oversight, and a violation of separation of powers,” said Steven Aftergood, an intelligence analyst at the Federation of American Scientists. “It’s potentially very serious.”

The White House declined to comment, but National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said Obama supported making the major findings of the torture report public.

“For some time, the White House has made clear to the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that a summary of the findings and conclusions of the final report should be declassified, with any appropriate redactions necessary to protect national security,” Hayden said.

McClatchy reported that the CIA inspector general has made a criminal referral to the Justice Department, a threshold procedure for opening a criminal investigation.

Neither the CIA nor the Justice Department would comment for this story.

In 2012, the Justice Department closed an inquiry into prosecuting low-level CIA practitioners of torture without bringing any charges. But the prospect of the agency spying on its Senate overseers who prepared their own inquiry potentially places the agency right back into the legal morass it has labored for years to avoid.

In February, the CIA confirmed to the Guardian that it is subject to the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which makes it a crime to access government computer networks without authorization. The issue arose after Udall’s partner on the committee, Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden, asked CIA Director John Brennan at a January hearing, without elaboration, if the statute applied.

Overshadowed by the CIA inspector general’s inquiry is the future of the report itself.

The committee is pushing for a declassification that the Justice Department, in a letter responding to a lawsuit by journalist Jason Leopold, said is a decision that rests with the committee itself.

But the president of the United States possesses wide latitude to order the report released, as the White House says it supports. “The classification system is based on executive order, not on statute, and the president has absolute authority to declassify executive branch records at will,” said Aftergood.

“In this case, he could order declassification of the Senate intelligence committee report today.”

Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat and ex officio member of the intelligence committee, said the alleged monitoring was potentially “extremely serious.”

“If, as alleged in the media, CIA accessed without permission or authority a computer network dedicated for use by a Senate committee, it would be an extremely serious matter. Such activity, if it occurred as alleged, would impede Congress’ ability to carry out its constitutional oversight responsibilities and could violate federal law,” Levin said in a statement on Wednesday.

"The bigger issue is the backdooring of intel info into criminal investigations and the due process issues that raises and the use of intelligence for partisan polical purposes."

That said, my previous question remains. It would appear that the NSA has bootstrapped itself into a pretense of having endrun our laws. There is a lawlessness to this this, yes? And is that not the deepest issue of all? An all seeing all knowing state unrestrained by law? Indeed, some of us around here have been arguing that this is exactly why the state should not be all seeing and all knowing.

Here again is the problem of surveillance professionals operating within a highly technologized surveillance state: If they can do it they will do it. If they are able to take an action they will sooner or later take it, whether or not it’s a good thing, even whether or not it is legal. Defenders of the surveillance state as it is currently organized and constituted blithely argue that laws, rules, traditions and long-held assumptions will control or put a damper on the actions of those with the power to invade the privacy of groups or individuals. They are very trusting people! But they are wrong. You cannot know human nature (or the nature and imperatives of human organizations) and assume people will refrain from using the power at hand to gain advantage. And so we have to approach surveillance state issues not from a framework of “it’s OK, we can trust our government” but “it’s not going to be OK, government agencies give us new reasons each day to doubt their probity, judgment and determination to adhere to the law.”

Today’s case: Sen. Dianne Feinstein has accused the CIA of compromising and trifling with computers being used by Senate staffers in an investigation of the agency. Here is CIA Director John Brennan’s denial.

What is startling in the story is that it’s not surprising. The CIA is under Senate investigation, in this case regarding its now-defunct secret interrogation and detention program. You can argue whether the investigation is or is not historically justified, politically motivated or operating fully on the up and up. (Unnamed CIA officials had previously told the Washington Post that, in fact, Senate investigators had themselves accessed documents to which they were not entitled.) Feinstein is suggesting the CIA, an executive agency, used its technological capabilities to thwart, confuse or disrupt the legal investigative actions of the legislative branch. If she is correct, that would be a violation of the laws preventing the CIA from conducting domestic surveillance. And of course it would constitute a violation of the separation of powers.

But again, it’s not surprising. If it is true it is very bad, but not a shock. We have been here before, as Ron Fournier notes. But this story will likely make a difference, and wake some people up on the Hill. Dianne Feinstein of California has been a U.S. senator for more than 21 years and has been a vocal defender of the U.S. surveillance apparatus since it came under attack with the emergence of Edward Snowden. She views surveillance from a national-security perspective. As chairman, for five years, of the Senate Intelligence Committee she is more aware than most of the security threats and challenges under which America operates. There is a sense she has viewed the alarms and warnings of antisurveillance forces as the yips and yaps of kids who aren’t aware of the brute realities she hears about in classified briefings. Over the past decades she has been exposed to a large number of intelligence professionals who are first rate, America-loving and full of integrity, and so worthy of reflexive respect. Her loyalty would be earned and understandable.

But now she, or rather her committee’s investigators, have, she believes, been spied upon. Which would focus the mind. She is probably about to come in for a great deal of derision. She should instead be welcomed into the growing group of those concerned about the actions and abilities of the surveillance state. It could not have been easy for her to say what she’s said. She is right to feel and share her intellectual alarm.

These days, it seems privacy is under assault from all sides. Your phone can track your location, your thermostat learns your personal habits, Facebook FB -5.19% knows the most intimate details about your life—and U.S. intelligence agencies are racing to sweep up reams of data.

With every swipe, click and login, people are sharing ever-growing amounts of information about themselves—but now they're getting tired of the consequences. And they're starting to fight back.

More people are turning to a new wave of tools that let them cover their footsteps online or let them know who's watching them.

They're downloading programs that allow them to see how their online activity is being monitored or who can get access to their social-media information. They're turning to browsers and search engines that don't track their queries, and to services that encrypt their messages. Some may soon opt for a new wave of phones that help hide their activity from trackers.

The fears about privacy are widespread. According to the Pew Research Center, half of Americans—up from 33% in 2009—are concerned about the wealth of personal data on the Internet.

But growing numbers of people are also staging everyday rebellions against rampant data mining. According to the same Pew survey, 86% have taken steps to mask their digital footprints.

For instance, ad-blocking tools, which keep ads off your screen and prevent the ad companies from getting data about you, have become the most popular browser extension on the Web: More than a quarter of Americans have downloaded them, according to Forrester Research Inc. FORR -0.79%

Consumers who use privacy tools say they are helping them find a middle ground between too much exposure and disconnecting entirely. Consider how people are using them to keep a tighter rein on social media.

Last year Darren Odden, a 43-year-old software engineer in Santa Cruz, Calif., was shocked to find that pictures of his 16-month-old son were showing up on public Google GOOG -2.79% searches.

Panicked, he considered pulling all his photographs from social-media sites. Then he downloaded AVG PrivacyFix, a free program from the antivirus software company AVG Technologies.

The program's dashboard gives users a snapshot of what information they're actually sharing when they use social networks and services, including Facebook, LinkedIn and Google. It pings users with a small red exclamation point if their privacy settings are weak and sends an alert when a website users have visited in the past 50 days makes relevant changes to its privacy policies.

The reason pictures of his son were leaking into Google queries, Mr. Odden learned on PrivacyFix, was that he had inadvertently made some Facebook settings public.

"Sometimes you want to share pictures of your infant with just your family and a few friends and not with the rest of the world," he says. "It shouldn't be so difficult to do that."

Now that he has control over his data, he says he posts more frequently on social networks. "It empowers me to share more—with the right people," he says. "I know that when I share something with friends or family, I'm not getting uber-personal with a business client."

Other products let people keep track of their personal data in other ways. Privowny, a free privacy toolbar for Firefox and Chrome, can show users which companies have their credit card, phone number and email, and are sharing data about you.

Abine Inc.'s $129 DeleteMe software can remove someone's public profile and contact and personal information from leading sites that gather data about people from around the Web and offer it for a variety of uses, such as background checks.

Another popular way to cover online footprints is to monitor cookies, the tiny files that marketing companies place on sites and browsers to track people's interests and habits. Some of that data gets sent to firms that maintain lists of people who fit marketing characteristics, such as those who are struggling economically or have ailments such as depression or AIDS.

More people are making sure the data doesn't get collected in the first place. According to the Forrester survey, 8% of all Internet users have downloaded programs that monitor and manage cookies.

With this software—such as Evidon's Ghostery and Mozilla's Lightbeam, both free—users generally can see which cookies are on their browser, delete them one by one and block future ones from being placed.

Lydia Snider, a 45-year-old small-business consultant, uses PrivacyFix to see all the cookie trackers that are following her as she surfs the Web. And she sometimes taps into a feature built into Google's Chrome browser: Incognito mode, where all the cookies on sites people visit are deleted so advertisers can't track you. "Whenever I'm searching for anything medical, anything I don't want big data to know about, I now go Incognito," she says.Searching Securely

The difficulty of searching anonymously makes a lot of people uneasy—especially since the Edward Snowden allegations about the National Security Agency. In response, many are seeking out search tools that don't track their data.

Logan McCamon, a 22-year-old student at Truman State University, in Kirksville, Mo., says he's had a "general unease" about his privacy since the NSA revelations surfaced. Two months ago, he downloaded DuckDuckGo, a search engine that doesn't collect any information on its users and blocks all ad trackers from the search page.

"I don't know what's being collected, if it's my search history or all my data, or my phone conversations," he says. "Having less data about me out there made me more comfortable."

DuckDuckGo and other Google alternatives have seen traffic soar. Since its founding in 2011, for instance, DuckDuckGo has risen to 4.5 million visits a day. Ixquick, another anonymous search browser, had 2.5 million users a day in the spring of 2013, before the Snowden disclosures. Now it has five million a day.

Many users are also looking to protect their email. Encrypted and so-called ephemeral messaging—texts that disappear seconds after you send them—have become explosively popular among teens, and have long been used by security professionals.

But now people who aren't worried about parents or hackers are seeing value in these apps. WhisperSystems' free encrypted messaging service has had a 3,000% surge in installs since the Snowden revelations, the company says.

Nathan Pham of San Jose, Calif., whose business is to help nonprofits raise money, started using a free encrypted messaging service from Wickr six months ago.

The service scrambles users' communications so their Internet carrier—and the messaging service—can't read them. Mr. Pham uses the service to gossip with his friends and share business ideas with colleagues. "It's not about what you're hiding, but about what you want to share," he says. "I think people are starting to get a grasp on how exposed they are."Dialing Up Defense

While most of the available privacy technologies are for desktop computers, some new offerings are designed for smartphones, because consumers are spending growing amounts of time on them—and they present such big risks. Wi-Fi-enabled smartphones are beaming people's location to any number of companies that track how they move, while smartphone apps collect reams of personal information.

In recent weeks, a new crop of phones designed to keep user data away from the prying eyes of government and corporations have come on the market. The $189 FreedomPop Privacy phone encrypts a person's text messages and emails, and blocks companies from tracking Web browsing and searches. The Wi-Fi signal is also automatically turned off.

Startup carrier FreedomPop can offer the phone at a cheap price because it uses retrofitted Samsung Galaxy SII devices. While most people are unlikely to switch over to a privacy phone entirely, the company is betting that many people will fork over $189 for a secondary phone that can be used when a person is talking, texting, searching or inputting information that is sensitive.

Another smartphone with similar privacy features, SGP Technologies' Blackphone, sells for $629. (SGP is a joint venture of software firm Silent Circle and device maker Geeksphone.)

But all of these privacy products come with trade-offs. Blocking social-network posts or contact information from showing up on a Google search might protect people's privacy, but it could also mean old friends they'd like to hear from might not be able to track them down either. Deleting cookies means people may miss out on some targeted deals or services from companies that rely on the tracking files. Using secret or encrypted messaging services means people are limiting themselves to conversations with other people who use the same services.

Still, many users say it's worth the effort. Ryan Sheppard, a 22-year-old IT consultant in West Columbia, S.C., who uses an antitracking browser called Aviator, says that sometimes the browser disables his plug-ins, which makes it difficult to load videos.

But he says he's willing to endure the headaches in the name of privacy.

"I know that companies aren't selling my information or my browsing habits," he says. "I have that peace of mind."

Ms. Dwoskin is a staff reporter of The Wall Street Journal in San Francisco. She can be reached at elizabeth.dwoskin@wsj.com.

Free speech, right to bear arms, search and seizure, and due process claims based on gun seizure can go forward

By Eugene Volokh



March 24 at 9:35 pm

So holds Rhein v. Pryor (N.D. Ill. Mar. 20, 2014). At this stage of the proceedings, there has been no factfinding based on the plaintiffs’ allegations, so one cannot assume that the defendants indeed behaved the way the plaintiffs claim. I quote the case only to show what legal theories can be brought if government officials do indeed act in the ways the plaintiffs allege. Here are the factual allegations; note that a FOID card is a Firearm Owners Identification Card that is required under Illinois law to possess guns:

[Plaintiffs allege that, as] of February 3, 2011, Plaintiffs possessed FOID cards, owned firearms, and kept their firearms in their home. At some point before February 3, 2011, David expressed “unpopular political views … about his support of Second Amendment rights” to “a locally elected official.” That official, somebody in that official’s office, or one of the individual defendants falsely construed David’s comments “as evidence that [he] had a mental condition that made him dangerous.” On February 3, 2011, [Illinois State Police] Lieutenant [John] Coffman wrote a letter to David revoking his FOID card under § 8(f) of the Act based on the false and unreasonable assertion that David had a “mental condition” within the meaning of that provision. The letter was mailed on February 4, 2011, and David did not receive it until February 7, 2011.

On February 5, 2011, with Lieutenant Coffman’s approval, Agents Pryor and Summers entered Plaintiffs’ home without a warrant or consent, conducted a search, and seized Plaintiffs’ firearms, which Plaintiffs used for personal protection, hunting, investment, and enjoyment. These actions[, plaintiffs allege,] were taken even though “[t]here was no reasonable basis to conclude David Rhein had a mental condition that presented a clear and present danger to himself or anyone else.” It follows, the amended complaint claims, that the seizure of Plaintiff’s firearms and the revocation of David’s FOID card was “in no way … justified under this statute [§ 8(f)].” Kim’s FOID card was not revoked.

Plaintiffs hired an attorney, and in Summer 2012, as a result of a court order, their firearms were returned to them. Plaintiffs plan to continue engaging in political commentary in support of the Second Amendment, and they fear that their speech will put them at risk of being labeled “mentally unstable and dangerous” and having their firearms seized and FOID cards revoked.

Here’s the court’s analysis:

Plaintiffs allege that Defendants violated their First Amendment rights when they revoked David’s FOID card and seized their firearms because David had “express[ed] unpopular political views, specifically about his support of Second Amendment rights.”

To state a viable First Amendment retaliation claim, a plaintiff must allege that: “(1) he engaged in activity protected by the First Amendment; (2) he suffered a deprivation that would likely deter First Amendment activity in the future; and (3) the First Amendment activity was ‘at least a motivating factor’ in the Defendants’ decision to take the retaliatory action.” The amended complaint plainly alleges all three elements — David’s speech about the Second Amendment was protected by the First Amendment, having his FOID card and firearms taken away could deter him from engaging in that speech, and his FOID card and firearms were taken away because Defendants did not like his speech.

[Plaintiffs] allege that “[t]he actions taken against David Rhein … were done because of his political comments to a locally elected official some time before the illegal search and seizure that concerned David Rhein’s views about Americans’ Second Amendment rights that either the representative, someone in that representative’s office, and/or one of the Defendant Officers somehow construed (falsely) as evidence that David Rhein had a mental condition that made him dangerous”; that David “was unreasonably deemed mentally unfit based on the exercising of his free speech issues regarding the Second Amendment”; and that “[w]hile Coffman alleged in his letter that David Rhein had … a mental condition, this is totally without merit, [and] Coffman had no reasonable basis for making this conclusion.” These allegations are sufficient at this stage of the proceedings to support a claim that Defendants revoked David’s FOID card and took away his firearms in retaliation for his protected speech….

Plaintiffs also allege that the revocation of David’s FOID card and confiscation of their firearms violated the Second Amendment, which provides an individual right to firearms ownership. If David indeed had a mental condition of a nature that posed a clear danger to himself or others, then he likely would have suffered no Second Amendment deprivation. See Heller, 554 U.S. at 626 (observing that “the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited,” and noting that “nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons or the mentally ill”). But Plaintiffs allege that David had no such mental condition and could not reasonably have been thought to have such a condition. Because those allegations are deemed true at the pleading stage, the individual capacity Second Amendment claim survives dismissal….

Plaintiffs allege that their Fourth Amendment rights were violated when “Defendants Pryor and Summers, without a warrant, the Plaintiffs’ valid and voluntary consent, or any other legal justification, entered … and illegally searched the Plaintiffs’ home, and, once inside, … illegally seized the Plaintiffs’ firearms….” The entry and search of a home without consent or a warrant presumptively violates the Fourth Amendment. An exception applies if exigent circumstances are present. Exigent circumstances may be present if there is a “need to protect or preserve life or avoid serious injury.”

Defendants contend that there were exigent circumstances here — namely, the “immediate risk of harm” posed by David’s “mental state that presented a clear and present danger to himself and others” and his possession of firearms. But again, Plaintiffs allege that the supposed concern about David’s mental condition was a ruse and a pretext to take his FOID card and guns in retaliation for his pro-Second Amendment speech. And even putting aside the allegation, taken as true at this stage, that the individual defendants did not subjectively believe that David’s mental condition posed an immediate danger, Defendants must prove that they “had an objectively reasonable belief that exigent circumstances existed at the time of their warrantless entry into [Plaintiffs'] residence.” The amended complaint alleges, plausibly, that any such belief would have been unreasonable, which is sufficient to defeat Defendants’ exigent circumstances argument at the pleading stage….

Plaintiffs allege that the revocation of his FOID card and seizure of his firearms violated his right to due process. Defendants’ brief does not mention the individual capacity due process claim, let alone seek its dismissal….

Government could be even more corrupt than private organizations. Nothing in this piece surprises me. I have patients who are Federal employees who have told me stories.

I have witnessed cover-ups first hand at the Copyright Office.

Very few watchdogs exist and from what I see they are up against people who may know more but fear for their jobs and will "sacrifice" or "get involved" to become a whistleblower, massive backscratching among managers, bribery, and agency lawyers who are more concerned about covering up the agencies problems for reputational reasons then rooting out illegal/unethical activity.

"By pooling these data with the communications records it has been collecting since the spread of mobile phone networks two decades ago, the U.S. government has assembled the largest, if least visible, database in the world. It has given a million people security clearances. It has invested billions of dollars in software and hardware to analyze the data. It is constantly launching new code to comb the data for patterns that might reveal who is planning what terrible act against our country’s interests."

"By pooling these data with the communications records it has been collecting since the spread of mobile phone networks two decades ago, the U.S. government has assembled the largest, if least visible, database in the world. It has given a million people security clearances. It has invested billions of dollars in software and hardware to analyze the data. It is constantly launching new code to comb the data for patterns that might reveal who is planning what terrible act against our country’s interests."

And yet after the Russians gave the FBI the tsarnaev brothers on a platter, lots of Bostonians got fitted for prosthetic limbs.

It sounds like the title of a classic novel about desire and memory, perhaps Marcel Proust’s sequel to “Remembrance of Things Past.”

It is, in fact, based on a French legal phrase, le droit à l’oubli, the “right of oblivion,” which allows criminals who have paid their debt to society to object to the publication of information about their conviction and jail time.

That French concept was the underpinning of the European Court of Justice’s jolting ruling last week that Google and other search engines can be forced to remove search results about ordinary citizens linking to news articles, websites, court records and other documents if the information is deemed “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant” — even if it is truthful.

There goes the Internet.

At a time when American society is obsessed with memory and how it slips away, the Europeans are focused on forgetting and how it slips away.

Anyone can get on the Internet. It takes skill and lots of money to get off. The new luxury is privacy.

As James Gleick wrote in “The Information,” “Forgetting used to be a failing, a waste, a sign of senility. Now it takes effort. It may be as important as remembering.”

Still stung by the overreaches of the N.S.A., collaborating with American tech companies, the Europeans are challenging what is far more accepted here: the right of Big Data to have All Data, the right of knowing to trump the right of privacy.

They are implicitly rebuking America, the land of Gatsbyesque reinvention, by defending the right to reinvention.

The suit against Google was brought by Mario Costeja González, a self-proclaimed Google fan and graphologist who is a consultant on nonverbal communication. He resented a Google link to a 1998 Barcelona newspaper article that said the government had forced him to sell a house to settle unpaid debts.

About the Internet, he told The Financial Times, “There is data that is not relevant and that affects your dignity and your private life.”

A New York Times editorial warned that the ruling could lead to a purge that “would leave Europeans less well informed and make it harder for journalists and dissidents to have their voices heard.”

Laura Handman, a First Amendment lawyer and partner at Davis Wright Tremaine, notes that “the right to be forgotten” is an effort to restore the legal concept of “practical obscurity,” which meant, in the old days, people would have to go to a library and look up stories on microfiche to delve into someone’s past.

“There’s no more practical obscurity with search engines,” Handman said. She worries that information from the past that is relevant to the present — be it about criminals, predators, aspiring politicians or even Spanish deadbeats — could be taken down. It could be hard for search engines to make nuanced responses to claims so they might yank chunks of information off, she said, and then, “What gets lost?”

There’s already a measure to help the most innocently reckless, topless, tippling and selfie-obsessed among us. California lawmakers passed a law last year that, in 2015, will give minors the legal right to delete their online indiscretions.

Gleick is dismayed to find himself defending Google. “Forgetting is a skill we have to relearn because it’s a balm, a safety valve, a blessing,” he said. “But lobotomizing the Internet is not the answer.Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyAdvertisement

“We need to be aware that this kind of perfect, prosthetic memory that the Internet has created for us is a burden as much as it is a useful tool. But that doesn’t mean that people suddenly have the right to burnish their reputations by distorting the record in the infosphere.”Continue reading the main storyRecent CommentsSimon Felz16 hours ago

Seems simple to me. The right of privacy should trump the right of harmful republication. Any issue, once settled, ceases to be public,...dave nelson16 hours ago

Well maybe less rocks to hide under will make people think more about the consequences of their actions AND consequently we might even...S. Bigalow16 hours ago

Exactly--"the rich and powerful" control information about themselves. Why should the world have easy access to ours?

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Meg Ambrose, an assistant professor at Georgetown University who is writing a book on the subject, praises the European skepticism.

“People are sick of walking on eggshells and censoring themselves,” she said. “They would like a bit of leniency in our personal data and how it’s used.”

Jaron Lanier, the author of “Who Owns the Future?” and a man known as “the father of virtual reality,” vehemently agrees, comparing Gonzáles to “the guy in Tiananmen Square who stood up to a row of tanks.”

He notes that the rich and powerful tech elites — like Google’s Eric Schmidt, who lamented the ruling — seek the ability to control and restrict information about themselves.

He thinks the ruling rebuts Big Data’s “infantile desire for immediate gratification where you get to know everyone else’s secrets even as you seek to keep your own. In order for others to be free, that means you don’t get to stuff your nose into all their orifices all the time. It’s this horrible fusion of nerd supremacy with hyper-libertarianism that has taken over in Silicon Valley.

“We have to give each other some space and trust and room and faith and privacy,” he said. “There should be a right to self-definition, self-invention and how you present yourself.”

Or else we’re digitally doomed to be like Gatsby, “borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

They use them in N.C. too. http://www.news10.net/story/news/investigations/2014/06/23/is-sacramento-county-sheriff-dept-using-stingray-to-track-collect-data/11296461/

The Sacramento County Sheriff's Department may be keeping judges, prosecutors and the public in the dark about the use of a controversial electronic surveillance tool known as the StingRay, according to new information obtained by News10.

Despite evidence showing the sheriff's department is utilizing the device, the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office and Sacramento Superior Court judges said they have no knowledge of StingRays or similar tools being used in Sacramento.

This revelation is concerning to privacy advocates and defense attorneys. They say the intrusive nature of the device, which tracks people in their homes and collects data from third parties, requires a search warrant. The fact that judges and prosecutors haven't heard of this use could indicate that warrants to use a StingRay aren't being obtained.stingray-1920

StingRay, IMSI catcher(Photo: News10/KXTV)

The district attorney's office said they would expect to see a search warrant for any device capable of real-time location tracking.

"We request a search warrant in all of those cases," Sacramento County Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Grippi said. He said while warrants for a wiretap or GPS tracking devices are fairly common, he has never seen a Stingray warrant.

The sheriff's department won't acknowledge they own the surveillance tool or talk about how it works. They also won't discuss who is targeted with it or what oversight mechanisms are in place to govern its use.

A News10 investigation in March showed the spying device is being used by at least nine local law enforcement agencies in California, from San Diego to Sacramento.

A StingRay is a brand of IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity) catcher, a device that mimics a cell tower and attracts all wireless phone signals within a certain radius into connecting with it. Authorities can use it to track the location of phones in real time, as well as the unique ID and phone numbers of all connected phones and the numbers dialed by a connected phone. That includes the phone numbers of outgoing calls and text messages.

StingRays also can be configured to capture the content of calls and texts connected to the device, although Harris Corporation, the maker of Stingray and similar products, said devices used by law enforcement don't have that capability.

Linda Lye, a staff attorney for the ACLU of Northern California, spent several years battling federal and local authorities for StingRay records. Lye reviewed documents and other evidence obtained by News10 and believes the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department is almost certainly using a StingRay, and likely with little to no oversight.

"There's no California law governing how StingRays are to be used," Lye said. "It means law enforcement is using them under rules that they have unilaterally written."

Over the past six months the sheriff's department has denied multiple requests from News10 to discuss the technology. News10 submitted a records request to the sheriff's department in October 2013 asking for contracts, agreements, invoices, purchase orders or maintenance contracts signed with Harris Corporation.

The sheriff's department responded by providing a purchase order for a "High Powered Filtered 25W PA Kit (CONUS)" costing $11,500, but said they had no other responsive records or documentation specifically related to a StingRay device.

Procurement documents from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement describe the "High Powered Filtered 25W PA Kit (CONUS)" as a signal amplifier for a StingRay device.

In early February, News10 obtained StingRay records from the San Jose Police Department. San Jose was interested in purchasing a StingRay from the Harris Corporation and discussed the device with other law enforcement agencies already using it - including the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department.

"The Harris Corporation is a government contractor and the sole supplier of this technology and type of product line," stated a San Jose Police Department grant application requesting Department of Homeland Security funds to purchase a StingRay. "The Harris Corporation is bound by Title 18 USC 2512 and is protected under non-disclosure agreement and federal law. Research of the product consisted of testing by San Jose Police and technology and equipment feedback from the U.S. Marshals Service, [Redacted], the Oakland Police Department, the Sacramento Sheriff's Department, the San Diego Sheriff's Department, the Los Angeles Police Department, and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department."

"While I am not familiar with what San Jose has said, my understanding is that the acquisition or use of this technology comes with a strict non-disclosure requirement," Sacramento County Undersheriff James Lewis said in a written statement. "Therefore, it would be inappropriate for us to comment about any agency that may be using the technology."

Privacy advocates such as the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation argue that a non-disclosure agreement between the sheriff's department and a private corporation is not a valid reason to withhold public records.

"Government agencies cannot enter into private contracts in order to evade their statutory obligations," Lye said.

The sheriff's department later refused to release additional records requested by News10, citing several federal regulations, including the Freedom of Information Act, the Homeland Security Act, International Traffic in Arms Regulations and the Arms Export Control Act.

Lye reviewed the department's justification to withhold public records and said she believes their justification is invalid. The arms trafficking exemptions, she said, don't apply to StingRays.

"In order to be protected under that, there would have to have been a determination that they're on the U.S. munitions list, and they're not," Lye said.